The Detective’s DeskPEN & PAPER · CASE FILE
Pen & Paper · A dinner interrupted by two alarms
A host is murdered and a rare journal disappears during an archive blackout. It is tempting to blame a single conspiracy. Separate the rooms, objects, agreements and intervals, then decide who killed, who stole and who knowingly helped which plan.
Read the case file below, or open the interactive desk to examine records, keep notes and submit your reasoning. These are the case materials, without the solution.
Alaric is found in the study. The journal is missing from the archive. Two independent camera systems and a delayed archive alarm survive. No outsider entered the house after dinner began; all six guests’ movements are accounted for by the combined records.
Household cook
I stayed with the kitchen crew. Rowan asked me for an empty food carrier before dinner.
Alaric had not paid our overtime. I refused another event until he did.
The carrier had no hidden compartment when it left my kitchen.
Alaric’s solicitor
I sat in the camera-covered dining room after Alaric left at 22:08.
The letters would cause a family dispute, but Alaric had authorised publication.
He asked June to bring the original letters to the study before the archive alarm.
Security contractor
I ran a routine archive recorder reset at 22:15. No one asked me to hide a visit.
Rowan offered me a share of a private transaction. I knew it concerned the journal.
The study camera is independent of the archive recorder I reset.
Invited historian
I waited with Mira in the dining room. I saw an unsigned dealer receipt in Rowan’s coat at arrival.
I disputed June’s family claim and was due to examine the letters.
The archive journal and the family letters are different objects, stored in different rooms.
Family archivist
I stayed at the dinner table until the archive alarm at 22:20. I never entered the study.
Host Alaric intended to publish letters proving I had fabricated a family claim.
The archive alarm time cannot tell you when something happened in the study.
Art dealer
I left for the conservatory after dessert. I took nothing from the archive.
Alaric had refused to sell me a rare journal. I had already promised it to a buyer.
Felix had access to the archive camera service controls.
Read each record on its own terms. A claim made by a person is different from a fact established by an independent record.
Physical record · Study
June enters the study at 22:09 carrying the family-letter folder and leaves at 22:13 without it. No other person enters during the fatal interval. The study camera never loses power.
Physical record · Archive
Rowan enters the archive at 22:15 with the empty food carrier. The last intact internal frame shows the journal on the shelf; the next restored frame at 22:19 shows it missing.
Physical record · Service room
Felix disables only the archive recorder at 22:15. No fault or scheduled service exists. The study recorder is independent and remains active.
Physical record · Service room
June’s argument with Alaric concerns only the family letters. Rowan’s messages to Felix concern the journal and an empty archive. No shared instruction, transfer or prior awareness connects the theft plan to June’s study visit.
Physical record · Archive
The archive alarm is generated two minutes after the door’s open-too-long threshold. Its 22:20 sound is not the moment of entry or removal, and it says nothing about the earlier study incident.
Physical record · Study
The letters independently disprove June’s fabricated claim. Alaric’s preserved instruction to Mira asks June to bring them for a 22:09 confrontation before publication.
Physical record · Service room
The original journal, matching its accession marks, is recovered from Rowan’s food carrier. The family letters are not inside it. Nabil’s empty-carrier handover is recorded before dinner.
Physical record · Study
Alaric died from a deliberate close-range assault between 22:09 and 22:13. The family letters lie scattered beside him. No remote mechanism or delayed exposure was found.
Physical record · Archive
Rowan and Felix agree before dinner to remove the journal and split the buyer’s payment. It names the archive, carrier and recorder reset, and expressly plans an unoccupied room after Alaric goes to his study.
Physical record · Dining room
Mira and Esme remain in view after 22:08; Nabil stays with the kitchen crew. Rowan is visible in the conservatory throughout 22:09–22:13 and Felix at the service console. Neither reaches the study during the murder.
Use the interactive case desk to select your finding and cite the records that support it. The answer is checked there, and your progress stays in your browser.
Compare the records with each account. Work out what the evidence establishes, then separate that finding from anything it does not prove.